Safe-haven Yen, the United States Dollar, and Other News

On Friday, the yen reached a 2-week high. Meanwhile, the United States dollar index remained broadly flat. The yuan dipped, but it soon stood near a 4-month peak.

The safe-haven Japanese yen was supported by concerns about a surge in coronavirus infections in the United States and elsewhere. Thus, on Friday, the United States dollar paused.

Across the entire United States, more than 60,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported. So far, this is the largest single-day tally by any country in the global pandemic. That then discouraged some American consumers from returning to public spaces.

Some Asian pacific cities that had previously appeared to have contained the disease such as Tokyo, Melbourne, and Hong Kong, have seen new spikes in infections. That dampened the mood further.

The caution helped drive the safe-haven yen up by approximately 0.5% to a two-week high of 106.72 per the United States dollar.

The United States Dollar and Other Currencies

Lee Hardman is a currency analyst. He works at MUFG. Hardman said that the Japanese yen has been trading within a very-tight trading rate throughout the crisis. Moreover, Hardman noted that they are back towards the bottom of that range.

The United States dollar gained in Asian trading hours. Nevertheless, it later lost momentum. Thus, it remained broadly flat against a basket of currencies.

The euro and British pound battled back to broadly low levels after earlier losses.

The Chinese yuan was down by around 0.1%, having touched a new-four month high of 6.9808. It ended up close to 7 yuan per the United States dollar.

The Chinese currency gained almost 1% last week. Hopes of capital inflows are currently supporting the currency. That is because, after Beijing indicated it wants a healthy bully market, share prices rebounded.

Dmitriy Vlasov is a portfolio adviser. He works at East Capital in Hong Kong. He said that higher debt yields attract foreign capital.

This is the current news of the market.